“He watches over / all his bones – not one of them / shall be broken. – Evil shall slay / the wicked – and those who hate the righteous / shall be destitute. – Yhwh redeems the soul / of his servants – and all those / who seek refuge in him / shall not be desolate.” The image is once again focused on Yhwh’s seeing: “He watches over al his bones…”. And, as we have seen in the past, Yhwh’s ‘watching’ or his ‘eyes’ are not merely tools of detached observation. Rather, for Yhwh to ‘see’ (or, to ‘hear’) is to act. Hence, “not one of them (bones) shall be broken.” This is a protective and redemptive gaze. From this vantage we then turn ‘outward’ to the enemy: “evil shall slay the wicked…”. This transition is very similar to vs. 16-17 where “the eyes of Yhwh were upon the righteous” and his “face is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.” A significant difference is that there the ‘face’ was active against the wicked, whereas here it is ‘evil’ that slays them. What is interesting about this difference is that the Bible often has this almost ambivalence about how the wicked are punished (is it “Yhwh’s face” or is it simply the natural outworking of evil?). Does Yhwh punish or does he need to merely remove himself from the wicked’s lives and allow evil to work its course? The reverse of this is that of ‘wisdom’ and ‘Yhwh’s eyes’: wisdom taking the position of ‘evil’ and ‘Yhwh’s eyes’ that of his antagonistic ‘face’. So the question becomes is the blessed man blessed because he has acted wisely or is it because Yhwh’s gaze is upon him? Is it both? If so, does that mean that “Yhwh’s face” is the same as the “evil” that slays the wicked? It is obvious that the wisdom literature does make the connection as to ‘wisdom’ (see Proverbs 8); it does not, except in perhaps a few places, do the same with evil (and, even then, to interpret it thus would be a stretch). These seem abstract but it is important to note that the ‘bones’ of the righteous are imbedded in a psalm that is designed to teach ‘wisdom’. There is the sense, then, that Yhwh’s gaze, as we have said, does lend itself to a type of ‘science’ or ‘tradition-ing’. It can be learned, and it can be passed down. For the psalmist, though, it is important to say that he has not been as ambivalent about Yhwh’s ‘blessing’ as about his ‘curse’. Nowhere does he make the same transition as he does with the wicked (from “Yhwh’s face” to “evil”). And, likewise, his ‘teaching’ is rooted in and begins in “the fear of Yhwh”. Is it the emergence of ‘wisdom’, this sense of an abiding mode of Yhwh’s presence that can be learned, that gave rise to this sense that Yhwh’s gaze is ‘always-already’ on the poor? (Remember, in other psalms this is portrayed as Yhwh’s ‘forgetting’). I think this is very provocative—the most important aspect to this, though, can be seen in this verse—this ‘abiding’ presence of Yhwh is tied, absolutely, to his real deliverance of his people. In other systems of thought it seems very likely that once this ‘wisdom’ emerges it tends toward an abstraction from creation and desire to find union with ‘wisdom itself’ (the absolute) in such a way that the present moment and ‘deliverance’ are collapsed. There is no future orientation but present attempts at union. This is not what we have here. As we have said throughout: this wisdom is one of patient assurance. The poor man’s ‘bones’ are to be protected. This is a very concrete promise, and a very fleshly assertion of deliverance. (Wisdom, as it begins to work its way into apocalyptic, is an embodiment of this verse.) This prevents any reading of the ‘redemption of the soul’ as referring to the separation of the body from the soul. Rather, ‘redeeming the soul’ is another way of saying that Yhwh will not allow his bones to be broken. Notice the emphasis on Yhwh’s absolute protection: “not one…”. Just as the ‘hairs on the head are numbered’, so too is ‘every bone’ subject to Yhwh’s care and concern. The final two lines pick up several past images of the psalm: that of the hungry young lions and the ‘provided for children’, as well as those of the ‘righteous’ who are the object of Yhwh’s loving gaze and the wicked who are the object of his angry face and will be ‘cut off from the earth’. In addition, the phrase “those who seek refuge in him” picks up on the ‘fear of Yhwh’ and how wisdom is enacted in the psalm. The ‘desolation’ that will find the wicked (the ‘cutting off of their memory’) will not find the righteous because they are hidden in Yhwh (as their refuge). The focus here is steadfastly on the preservation of life: ‘lover of days’, ‘seeing goodness’, protection of ‘every bone’… The wicked suffer the reverse: cutting off of their memory, slaying, desolation… The consequence for the wicked is a wasteland, a desolation, a place where nothing lives (it is the reverse of the promised land; the pictures of the first half of Isaiah come to mind).
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